A man from florida almost he lost his leg — and might have died — from a rare flesh-eating bacterial infection, which developed after he was bitten on the thigh during a family fight.
Donnie Adams, a 53-year-old funeral director from the Tampa suburb of Riverview, went to the emergency room in mid-February to treat a dime-sized bump on his upper left thigh.
He was sent home with a tetanus shot and antibiotics, but the lesion worsened over the next few days, becoming red, swollen and painful to the touch.
Her thigh “almost looked like an orange peel because of the swelling underneath,” Dr. Fritz Brink, a wound care specialist at HCA Florida Healthcare who treated Adams, told NBC News.
“On day number three, the leg was swollen, it felt really hot and he had mobility issues and everything,” Adams said Friday.
Donnie Adams survived a flesh-eating disease that had begun to destroy part of his leg.HCA Florida Pasadena Hospital
Brink said Adams told him he suffered the bite while breaking up a family altercation.
“He pulled them off each other and in the process got bitten,” Brink said.
The appearance of the wound matched Adams’ account, he added.
“When I saw him at the hospital, you could still see the bite marks on his thigh,” Brink said. “He left teeth marks. I was very convinced he was telling a true story.”
He said he took Adams to the operating room at HCA Florida Northside Hospital in St. Petersburg on Feb. 19. Adams underwent a second surgery several days later, then was released from the hospital around the second week of March, Brink said.
“I knew it was serious after I got the tetanus shot,” Adams said, later adding, “I had no idea it would be something serious like this, this serious.”
Adams declined to say what caused the family dustup or identify which relative bit him.
“Family is everything, and sometimes things fall into families,” he said. “I’m a man of faith. People can be forgiven and that’s how I feel about it. It was a family event that went sour between two people and even though I stepped in the middle and I hurt, it does.” It doesn’t mean I’m going to hate my family for it.”
Donnie Adams with Dr. Fritz Brink.HCA Florida Pasadena Hospital
Adams said he was probably only a day or two away from needing an amputation.
“I would have lost my leg if I had waited until the next day based on how the infection was growing in that region,” he said. “It was a quiet storm.”
Flesh-eating disease, or necrotizing fasciitis, is a life-threatening disease that can be caused by a variety of different strains of bacteria, including group A streptococcus and other bacteria found in water, dirt or saliva
Bacteria enter the body through a break in the skin, such as a cut, scrape, burn, insect bite, or open wound. From there, it invades and kills the tissue under the skin surrounding muscles, nerves, fat, and blood vessels. The bacteria spreads quickly, so an infection can develop within hours or days.
“Most of the time, it’s a normal bacteria that lives on our skin, and they used a weak spot in a lesion as an entry point,” Brink said.
The human mouth contains hundreds of different bacteria, but it’s rare for doctors to see patients with a human bite, let alone one that turns into a life-threatening infection, Brink added.
He said he usually sees a case of necrotizing fasciitis once a month or every two months.
Brink’s theory about Adams’ case is that he likely developed a mild infection that traveled deeper into his soft tissue until it reached his muscle and “was able to take off.”
Brink estimated that he removed about 60 percent of the skin from the front of Adams’ left thigh to prevent the infection from spreading. From there, he said, he used a vacuum device to close the wound, which healed in about three months.
“I hope he makes a full recovery,” Brink said. “She’ll still feel that scar tissue on her thigh for a while, but her skin has completely healed.”
Adams said he used a walker to get around for about a month after he left the hospital. Now he walks without pain and without a limp.
“I don’t think I can give you a 40 [-yard sprint] today, but maybe 20,” he said.
